- Jan 26 - Mo’Fo Festival - Mains d’Oeuvres - Saint Ouen, France
Saint Ouen is a place I don’t really like to go to because it’s a very unsafe area in the suburbs of Paris. However, the first day of the Mo’Fo festival had a pretty good lineup. So I decided to be brave and… bring some friends with me.
Mains d’Oeuvres is a weird venue. I first thought of a school when I arrived in the building. I got lost quite a few times before the first gig, but it was fun.
This place has two stages. One called “MO”, the other one called “FO”.
It was 7.30pm when the first band came on stage. Maison Neuve is a French band known for being the support band of most obscure folk bands playing in tiny Parisian venues. I’m not a big fan of deep voices, but the lyrics really caught my ears. Maison Neuve are one of these bands that like to mix the English language with French, and it’s not ugly at all. It has this sort of poetry that is also seen on Frànçois & The Atlas Mountains’ songs. Very mature. Very encouraging stuff.
After a small break, we came back to the venue to see Benjamin Francis Leftwich. Pictures was ringing in everyone’s ears when I opened the doors. It sounded magical. I wonder how many songs I had missed though. Never Mind.
I spent most of the gig trying not to cry. It wasn’t easy. His stage presence reminded me of Conor O’Brien (Villagers). All alone with his guitar, he sometimes decides to go at the left side of the stage to sing alone without his mike, like Conor does during his solo gigs. Everybody was silent when he started singing Atlas Hands, which was amazing because you could focus on the music very easily. We even sat down during the last song. It’s been a while since I felt this good during a gig.
The next band we saw was Loney Dear. Here in France, we’re big fans of Swedish bands. It’s a country that musically fascinates us. Swedish bands are artists who have their own universe. You can’t really put a label on this music scene because it’s very eclectic and rich in so many ways. Sweden has got a lot to offer, more than any other country in the world. Loney Dear is a great example of that. Their folk music makes you travel across the world. You always picture them as being a band from America. They’re not. But when you see them, you’re having a really good time.
(except when the audience is like 3 meters higher than you)
Do you know what MOFO means in America ? Well, I got very enthusiastic when I saw that we were playing the MoFo festival. I thought “oh, we’re playing the Mother Fucker festival. Interesting”. What does MOFO stand for in France? Does it mean the same ? Maybe not.
Ben Cooper - Radical Face
This band is quite famous here in France because of a song featured in a Nikon commercial. But the problem when a band is famous for one song is that the audience keeps waiting for it to be played… and they wait, they become a bit enthusiastic, then they lose hope a little bit, and then the song comes and it’s a relief. Well, the famous song was the last one. So the gig was a bit awkward. I think people waited so long for the song to come that they couldn’t enjoy the gig properly. That’s a shame because it was a very good set. Ben (the singer) had very funny stories to tell, he also told the audience what the songs were about, and most of all, the drummer had an awesome moustache. Very, very awesome moustache.
We didn’t see the other bands, our bodies were too old to stay up for too long.
